A security specialist has fingered the country’s security operatives for complicity in the proliferation of guns.

Dr Emmanuel Kwesi Aning said at the last count there were between 15,000 to two million unregistered guns in the country both locally and internationally manufactured and others smuggled in.

He told the Emile Short Commission investigating the Ayawaso by-election violence that late 2018, he travelled from the Burkina Faso border to the northern part of the country from Hamile to Elubo and there were no boundaries.

“The levels of collusion between those who smuggle guns into this country and those who ought to be protecting us is immense…guns have been found in this country to emanate from as far as DR Congo.

“French Second World War stock has been found in this country…the Ashanti region has been the entry point and distribution point of guns across this sub-region,” he disclosed.

The Director, Faculty of Academic Affairs & Research of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) said when guns have become the most crucial source of livelihood for some people withdrawing them from communities and people’s hands need replacement with an alternative livelihood.

Reacting to suggestions that the country needs to use disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), in dealing with growing militia groups, he said at best the country has been paying lip service to the issue.

Related: Reintegrating members of militia into security forces may not work

According to him, the Centre undertook a major project for the United Nations in 2005 that put available unregistered guns close to 500,000.

“If we take the international attrition rate of 20 per cent to have been destroyed over time, that leaves us with 180,000 guns. Unfortunately, the local manufacturing of guns, free flow across the boundaries and because we are good in providing storage, transportation and export, the attrition rate is not reducing the volumes but rather we have seen exponential growth,” he said.

He disclosed that when they also discovered that there are sophisticated traditional means of stocking the guns which are as equally good as the stockpiling of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).

The security authority said their study again found that apart from GAF, none of the country’s security agencies has a stockpile management mechanism it is “defensible, professionally acceptable and technically worthwhile.”

Dr Kwesi Aning said due to an increasing demand for guns, particularly because of the activities of party militias, the DDR process will be a tricky one.

He is suggesting the UN is involved so they can finance the process of creating alternative livelihoods for those involved.